Weekly Obama report card: Boosted by polls, and a parasite

John Zogby

President Barack Obama is riding a crest of popularity as he enters the final stretch of his term. His job approval is about 52 percent, unemployment at 4.9 percent (half of what it was right before he entered office), and wages and salaries are now heading up significantly.

A U.S.-Russian brokered ceasefire in Syria to allow for humanitarian aid to the people of Aleppo is holding for four days. Today there are reports of aid actually arriving. (Author’s note: Aleppo is a city in northern Syria which has been ground zero for the Syrian civil war). A very good week for Mr. Obama.

Grade A

Jed Babbin

The best thing that can be said of President Obama’s week is that it was better than his last one. On Monday, the president celebrated a Muslim holiday by saying that America should admit more refugees from the Syrian war. Obama wants to raise to 110,000 the number of refugees admitted in 2017.

Three days after Iran threatened to shoot down Navy reconnaissance aircraft in international airspace, a State Department spokesman grudgingly admitted that the president’s nuclear deal with Iran could be the cause of Iran’s worsening behavior. (Well, duh!)

With Hillary Rodham Clinton on the injured reserve list for a couple of days, the president was out on the hustings, saying that the Clinton Foundation had saved “countless lives,” though he didn’t say how or where that had happened.

Perhaps Mr. Obama was encouraged by scientists’ decision to name a newly-discovered species of parasite after him. It’s a flatworm now called Baracktrema obamai.

Grade D-

Jed Babbin is an Examiner contributor and former deputy undersecretary of defense in administration of former President George H.W. Bush. Follow him @jedbabbin

John Zogby is the senior analyst for Zogby Analytics and author of “We Are Many, We Are One.” Follow him at @TheJohnZogby

Paul Bedard, the Washington Examiner’s “Washington Secrets” columnist, can be contacted at [email protected]